I’ve been reading an interesting pop psychology book called “You Are Not So Smart.” The book details various ways that our brains and minds can trick us into misreading reality.

In one chapter the author argues that in times of emergency, instead of freaking out like you might think, many people refuse to acknowledge the peril around them. They seek normalcy and discard any incoming information that interferes with that interpretation.

As the author points out, we can more easily convince ourselves that things aren’t as bad as they seem because the media often inflates dangers that turn out to be nothing.

Regular media overhyping and panic building over issues like Y2K, swine flu, SARS, and the like help fuel normalcy bias on a global scale. … With so much crying wolf, it can be difficult to determine in the frenzied information landscape when to be alarmed, when it is really not a drill.

I’d almost forgotten all the media hand-wringing over Y2K and the total non-event it turned out to be.

This comes around to a related thought I’ve been having. When Donald Trump announced his candidacy, the media treated as a joke. The same is basically true with Bernie Sanders. Frankly, I thought of these candidates as jokes. But we may be approaching a point where the final contest will be Trump versus Sanders. Whatever you might think about either of them, you have to give them credit for believing in themselves when “the establishment” did not.

Lately, I’ve featured Scott Adams take on Donald Trump on this blog. Adam’s argues that Trump is a “master persuader” who wins arguments by signaling subtle cues that bypass actual argumentation. (Read pretty much any of Adam’s posts on Trump for examples.)

Adam’s posits that Trump is in complete control of his blustering persona. Adam’s has even stated he feels Trump uses ego as tool he can turn on an off e.g. Trump doesn’t feel actually insulted when people disrespect him.

At Vox, an author presents a different view. He argues that Trump has a need to dominate every social situation and this need is built into Trump’s core character.

Trump doesn’t make people feel that way. Indeed, he has constructed his entire professional life around him being the center of universe, the focus of any room he’s in. He doesn’t want to be liked, he wants to be respected and feared. He wants to be the top dog; he is obsessed with it.

I think people often misread that as a species of strength, but its true origin is fear — deep, pre-verbal fear, down in the brainstem.

Some scientists have looked into what makes conservatives conservative. One thing they’ve found is that conservatives are more sensitive to negative features of the environment — to threat, contamination, disorder. At the far right end of the spectrum is the authoritarian, who dreams of total control, freedom from all threat, “peace through strength.”

And that’s Trump (who, not coincidentally, refuses to shake hands for fear of germs). He must be in control, have all the leverage, in every situation. (If he doesn’t, he just declares bankruptcy and moves on.) He is hyper-attuned to disrespect or disloyalty, as the feud with Fox News this week showed. And a hair-trigger fight-or-flight reflex makes him prone to outbursts and personal attacks whenever he feels threatened, which is often.

It’s pathological. And the thing about pathologies is that they cannot be taken on and off like masks. They are pre-conscious; they order incoming experience.

I will say, as much as I find biological or psychological theories about behavior compelling I’m aware they are very difficult to prove. Is Trump’s lizard brain controlling his behavior or a “master persuader” cerebral cortex? Nobody can really claim to know for sure.

On a side note, one things bugs me about the Vox article. At one point the author states.

And here’s the bedrock obstacle to Trump’s success: there are simply not enough struggling, resentful, xenophobic white people in the US to constitute a national majority sufficient to win a presidential election.

And beneath that is a picture of Trump talking to fans. One smiling female fan is what looks to be Asian and beyond that a browned skinned women, possibly Indian or Hispanic. This is is a picture of about seven people total. It’s of course possible that this photo was somehow rigged by Trump to show his multicultural appeal but it’s an odd choice to use under a paragraph making the opposite case.

I’ve been thinking a bit more about this signaling idea prompted by Scott Adams’ musings on the rise of Donald Trump. I find a lot of it ties in with things I’d already been thinking about.

Let’s consider this scenario. You bump into a friend and he says, “I’m going home to listen to my new collection of Bing Crosby CDs.” At first glance this might seem an innocuous, almost boring statement. But I would argue much is being said beyond the straight facts. For one, this person is saying they like Bing Crosby, which affirms a few things about their identity. It affirms that they don’t only listen to modern music, but have an affinity for the classics. And specific classics—Crosby represented the white establishment music of the time, a genre of music that is basically maligned by hipster musicians of the modern era (not entirely; this is a complex assertion but I think the gist holds true.) In a way, there’s something “politically incorrect” about liking Crosby as opposed to, say, a grittier black artist like Bessie Smith.

So, basically, that simple statement is loaded up with all sorts of subtle, cultural cues. This person isn’t just telling you about their evening plans, they are telling you about their identity. And depending on how you respond, you will tell them about your identity.

Adams’ assertion is that Trump is similarly loading his statements with these kinds of cues: subtle hidden meanings designed to appeal to a certain kind of voter.

One comment that Trump made that perplexed me at the time was Trump’s statement that illegal Mexican immigrants were hordes of rapists and murderers, though he did add, “some, I assume, are good people.” The “I assume” got me there. It’s like, “Geeze, Donald, you can’t even say that amidst the millions of Mexican immigrants there are, IN FACT, some good people?” He was actually leaving the possibility open that NONE of them were good people.

Let’s hold that thought. Consider another scenario. Let’s say you see a guy selling his car for $4000. You walk up to him and say, “I’ll give you $100.” Do you really expect to get the car for $100? Do you really think that’s a fair offer? Of course not; you’re saying ‘I drive a hard bargain.’ You will buy the car of the guy really wants to sell it, but you’re not going to be an easy mark.

My suspicion is that this was Trump’s real goal with the “good people” comment. He was saying, “I’m a tough negotiator. With me you don’t get to try and convince me that half of Mexican immigrants are good people, you try and convince me that a few of them are. I can lowball with the best of them because I hold the cards.” And people like tough negotiators for President; they like people who drive a hard bargain for “our” interests. I might even argue that this comment appeals especially to business people (small or large) who understand the intricacies of bargaining.

Of course it’s a dangerous statement since it could alienate so many people that it costs him the nomination. We will see of course, but he’s still in the lead.

I’m continuing to enjoy Scott Adam’s posts on politics—here’s a recent one arguing that the rise of political outsiders like Trump and Sanders is the result of social media bypassing representational democracy.

There’s another point Adams made somewhere in some other recent post (that I can’t track down at the moment)—the point was that one of Donald Trump’s strengths is his immunity to embarrassment. That might seem like a questionable ability. Doesn’t embarrassment keep you from making a fool of yourself? Sometimes, yes, but it could be a hindrance depending on your goals.

Personally, I find people who believe in insane conspiracy theories to be annoying. One of my early complaints about Trump was that he touted this insane “Obama is from Kenya” conspiracy theory*. Only an idiot would believe that. Trump, whatever you want to say about him, doesn’t seem like an idiot. So why does he believe it?

*For the record, I find the “Bush planned 9/11” theory equally insane.

Well, maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he just realized that this is a good way to signal to a certain group of Americans (roughly speaking, Nixon’s silent majority) that he’s on their side. Frankly, most of those people may not buy the Obama/Kenya theory but it’s anti-Obama and that’s enough for them.

Trump is immune from embarrassment and has no problem presenting himself as someone believing in something that on its face is quite idiotic. That’s my theory anyway, and it does seem to explain some of the inconstancies of Trump’s character (like how a basically smart/educated/rich guy can believe in nonsense. He doesn’t.)

The same thing might be said of Trump’s “Build a Wall to keep out Mexicans” plan. He knows it’s a preposterous, expensive idea. But he merely says the words to serve as signal to potential voters.

There was an interesting experiment described in this “Moral Tribes” book I’m reading. A generous welfare planned was described and called a “Republican plan” and experiment volunteers self-described as Democrats rejected it while self-described Republicans embraced it. The situation was reversed and so were the results. It almost seems like the we’re at the point where the substance of things is irrelevant—it’s entirely about symbolism. This is true with Trump and it’s true with Sanders (whose policy proposals are basically substance-less and have no chance of getting through Congress.)

It’s very possible this is one of the most interesting times in American history. I’m not uncertain that if Trump is elected that he won’t just turn around and announce that the whole thing was been a big, crazy challenge he gave himself to see if he could bullshit his way into office.

UPDATE: Here’s a Scott Adams post that gets to the heart of the argument that Trump is immune to embarrassment.

Trump intentionally accepts the scorn of many as a cost of winning. And it works.

Ask yourself if you could withstand the types of criticisms Trump withstands every day. It would kill a normal person with a fragile ego. One can only endure that type of abuse when you see ego as a tool, not a character trait. Trump doesn’t mind the criticism because people are attacking his choice of tools, not his personality. Only Trump knows his inner thoughts, and apparently he’s okay with them.

Always remember this: Ego is a tool, not a personality trait.You can manipulate your ego, as Trump shows us, to gain advantage in this world. I took the Dale Carnegie course years ago and they teach this very thing. Today when I embarrass myself in front of millions of people – which I do about once a week – it just seems funny to me.

I’ve been dimly aware that Scott Adams, author of the Dilbert comic strip, has an interesting blog that I should probably check out more. I only recently found out that he’s been making predictions about the political rise of Donald Trump that have been quite accurate (while the rest of the media has been baffled by Trump’s rise.)

Adams is a certified hypnotherapist and argues that Trump is what should be called a “master persuader”—a brilliant pitch man. Part of Adam’s thesis is, as I understand it, that people don’t really think logically, instead they respond emotionally to various cues. A good hypnotist, or politician, can manipulate people by transmitting these cues. That is what Trump has done, says Adams. Sounds nutty, but Adams has been making predictions about Trump’s fortunes with a high degree of accuracy based on this theory.

This Reason article provides some detail.

“What I [see] in Trump,” says Adams, is “someone who was highly trained. A lot of the things that the media were reporting as sort of random insults and bluster and just Trump being Trump, looked to me like a lot of deep technique that I recognized from the fields of hypnosis and persuasion.”

This also ties in with a book I’ve been reading called “Moral Tribes.” In the book, author Joshua Green argues that we are programmed by evolution to cooperate within groups; this behavior leads to the success of our individual genes. Green basically says that we have subconscious programs in our mind/brain that control our behavior. Presumably these programs could be activated by the cues Adams talks about.

The point of all this is that people who are baffled by Trump’s success despite his lying and general self-aggrandizement are missing the big picture. Trump knows exactly what he’s doing by sending signals to persuade people (more emotionally than logically) that he is a good choice for President.

I myself have said that while I think a Trump presidency could be a disaster for the solar system, I understand the appeal of his refusal to bow to political correctness. I’ve long identified in myself an anti-authortitarian streak, a dislike of being told what to do or say. The political correctness camp specializes in telling people what to do and say (often with very good reasons, but it’s still bossy.) Does Donald Trump behavior appeal to my “anti-authority mind module”? I think so.